‘Losing in front of your home crowd’; that’s the recent fate of Roy Keane who has been managing the Sunderland soccer team for the past 2 years. He has just stepped down without a push, dissatisfied with his own failure to maintain the initial team turnaround under his tenure.

Irish Times columnist Keith Duggan, writing in the sports pages of the newspaper last Saturday 6th December, reminds us of Keane’s place in Morrissey’s world (and I think hints at Morrissey’s place in his own!)…

…”Ten years ago, when Morrissey was singing Roy’s Keen on Top of the Pops, Keane was a marauding, suedehead midfielder who was at the epicentre of Ferguson’s empire and he was regularly portrayed as a half-wild Irishman in the British red tops – a character one step removed from the excesses of Punch magazine. In later years, they allowed that he might just be a smart lad after all but they could never fully come to terms with the fact he spoke and behaved in a way footballers never did before nor will do again…”

After describing some of this behaviour and popular reaction to it, Duggan concludes:
“Perhaps his last two years in football have taught Roy Keane the old truth; you can’t go home again...” Which has a ring of familiarity.